The year closes with a slew of celebrity deaths, a frightful president-elect, and the hovering window of how hopeless humanity can be as we watch the genocidal and refugee crises erupt around us without comment, without help.

The year closes in my personal life: a new principal at my school, the second daughter in middle school, the first daughter preparing for high school, the third daughter closing out our family’s elementary education. Tumultuous tumbles with family and friends that make me question everything: what I write, what I think, how I speak, how I feel about the issues surrounding me… and whether or not I should publish it “for all the world to see.”

The year closes on my habits: in many failed attempts at fulfilling resolutions, such as writing every day and ditching dairy, I have at least wholly committed to one–not a drink, not a drop, of alcohol for 2016.

And here I am, posting this. Am I an alcoholic? Are any of us? Would anyone be willing to admit it if they were?

Here are my haikus from 13 January 2016, in a moment of reflection and redemption:

reasons why i stopped:
one–brutal voice in writing,
uncensored anger

two–not much laughter,
too much crying to count
(my tear-stained regrets)

three–exhausted sleep
from too many restless nights
swimming in nightmares

four–so much good lost
on the desire to numb,
to not fully live

five–waste of money
in times when we had little,
in times when we’re rich

six–lust and lack of
mediocre love-making
blurred by consumption

seven–fat belly
of someone too far along
to give up this quick

eight–every bad choice
i have made as an adult
came from that bottle

nine–joy i once felt
disappeared on icy rocks
of my lost chances

ten–my daughters’ eyes
watching every move i make
(and i’m making… them)

The year closes with sadness, with darkness, with fear. I lost friends, I came to realize how few I have, and yet… hold them in such a greater light because of their proximity, their understanding of me. I reconciled with my sister and mother. I worked through difficulties in my marriage. I, as always, struggled through the intricacies of teaching teenagers and raising them. I got a new new kitten… and lost her a month later.

I watched the world witness the election of an evil demagogue.

I cried and I cried and I cried.

I wrote less and worried more.

But I didn’t drink. (I didn’t go to AA either. I didn’t need to.) I just wanted to see what the world was like again without the rose-colored glasses.

And the world is a hard, cold place. Filled with people who only think for themselves. Who send text messages to end friendships three years in the making. Who disregard human rights to save themselves a buck. Who turn their backs on those in need for political safety nets.

And the world is a bright and beautiful place. With young eyes that light up and demand that the future sees them for the beauty that they are: conservative Muslim, flamboyant LGBT, bleeding heart liberal, hopeful to no end. With city lights and mountain views, blue skies and snow. With full moons over lapping waves and pink sunrises over quiet urban neighborhoods. With ancient ruins and family freedoms. With girl power and urban schools. With everything that surrounds my bubble of humanity, my hope for human rights, my need to know that it. Gets. Better.

The year closes, and my eyes have opened. I have come to realize how infiltrated in our culture drinking is (this never quite occurred to me before) as I enter restaurants and am immediately offered cocktails or beer; as I go to book club and happy hour and parties and barbecues and hanging out at anyone’s house; as I navigate the simple sentence, “Water for me, thanks.”

The year closes, and I haven’t been numb. I have been fully awake, fully aware, of the pain that sneaks up when your youngest hasn’t done her math homework in three weeks, when your oldest can’t answer a question without a smirk, when your middle child talks back as easily as she grins, when students refuse to relinquish phones and family members whisper and rejection seems to lie behind every unopened door.

The year closes, and it may have many mistakes. It may have many moments of hollowness. But it does not have a single moment of regret.

Because it has been me, uncensored, unaltered me, in every last word, every last post, every last turn around the long journey through life.

The year closes, so let me hold up a glass: Cheers to a new year, a new tomorrow, a new hope… cheers to a new way of looking at the world. Drink… or no drink.

Cheers.